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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25900555">Earth Must Come First</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumixedia/pseuds/lumixedia'>lumixedia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Counting by the Millions [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bittersweet, Complicated Relationships, Dialogue, Ethics, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Prison, Season 3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:20:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,920</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25900555</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumixedia/pseuds/lumixedia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Chrisjen Avasarala visits Sadavir Errinwright after his arrest, because he's still her student, and always will be.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chrisjen Avasarala &amp; Sadavir Errinwright, Chrisjen Avasarala/Sadavir Errinwright</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Counting by the Millions [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1879624</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Earth Must Come First</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Based mostly on show canon up to S3E6: Immolation, but may drift toward book canon occasionally.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sadavir Errinwright sat at the table in the bare visitors' room, fiddling with the cuffs of his prison uniform, waiting for someone whose name the guard wouldn't tell him. It couldn't have been Jefferson or Jodie: they'd been by recently, they would've called ahead, they wouldn't have withheld their names, and they wouldn't have made him wait. Which meant it had to be...well. It would've had to be Chrisjen, except it couldn't possibly be Chrisjen, except it couldn't be anyone else. He stared fixedly at the door, vacillating between "it has to be Chrisjen" and "but <em>why</em> would it be Chrisjen" every other second.</p>
<p>The door opened.</p>
<p>Of course it was Chrisjen.</p>
<p>Sadavir straightened, clasping his hands. Their eyes met.</p>
<p>Chrisjen smiled. If her arrival was only half a surprise, her smile more than made up for the other half. Genuine, unwavering, just like it had been before the protomolecule came between them. For a single, disorienting moment, he was almost relieved that he'd failed, because otherwise he'd never have seen that smile again.</p>
<p>The moment passed. It had been a wrong, selfish thought. As Chrisjen herself had taught him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Twenty years ago, back when they still had a couple layers of authority above them in the Security Council, back before Chrisjen had had Sadavir promoted over herself to shield her from work she didn't like, back in those innocent days when their opinions were written into reports rather than the faces of continents, they had observed from the sidelines as a political alliance between the head of their agency and an adjacent one broke down. The two leaders had marched in lockstep since before the beginning of Chrisjen's career. Now one wrecked the other's reputation on Earth so thoroughly that the latter fled to the Outer Planets, where, several years later, he would end up dying in an oxygen tank accident.</p>
<p>"Would you do that?" Chrisjen had asked him. Her tone had made it clear that she meant it as an exam question. He had already been her student for years. He would always be her student. "Would you destroy a colleague over a mere policy disagreement?"</p>
<p>"Depends on the colleague," Sadavir had replied lightly.</p>
<p>"Wrong answer."</p>
<p>"Sorry, I wasn't trying to be serious."</p>
<p>"I know, but I was," Chrisjen said firmly. "That's the wrong answer. If you truly believe that someone you know will make millions suffer, staying your hand because you like them is unconscionable. Earth must come first."</p>
<p>"Many would say the opposite," Sadavir pointed out. "They'd say if you put your beliefs over your friendships, you probably have the wrong beliefs."</p>
<p>"Many would drop their pants and shit over the whole world just so they don't have to look at the hard choices it's covered in. It's not their fault. Our tiny little monkey brains didn't evolve to count to a million. It was an accidental side-effect of us trying to fuck more monkeys. And yet here we are, counting by the millions every day. And if you count to a million on one side of the scale and one on the other, how can it matter who the one is?")</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Sadavir," Chrisjen said, as if the last few months hadn't happened. "How are you doing?"</p>
<p>That, too, was unexpected. "Normally," he commented, "you only ask that when you actually want to know."</p>
<p>"Of course I actually want to know. Why else would I be here?"</p>
<p>He searched her face, unsuccessfully as always, for the lie. "I thought you might've been looking for an apology."</p>
<p>"Of course not."</p>
<p>"Good, because if you had been, I was going to tell you right up front that you weren't getting one."</p>
<p>"Good!" She smiled again. "I would've been furious if you apologized. If you didn't believe in what you were doing and did it anyway. That would have been a very different kind of betrayal."</p>
<p>"No. Never." Sadavir clenched his clasped hands against each other. It was suddenly very important to him--no, it had always been very important to him--that she not doubt him on this. "I always knew when I started working with Mao that in the best case I would keep my job and in the worst I would end up in this very prison. I did it anyway because I believed in it. Of course I would never harm you for mere personal gain, Chrisjen."</p>
<p>"I know," she said serenely. "You're not the fucking bobblehead."</p>
<p>He smiled a little at that. "And neither are you. And that's what made this all so hard, wasn't it?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Fifteen years ago, while working on an update to the Martian military action response handbook, they had gotten into an argument about Scenario 45(ii). The storyline that Scenario 45(ii) posited was rather convoluted, not exceptionally intriguing or realistic, and nothing like what actually ended up happening. But for whatever reason--adrenaline from their recent promotions, stress over their other duties, alcohol--they couldn't let the argument go. They went at it in her office, voiced raised, neither giving an inch, until deep into the middle of the night. They only gave up when Jodie called for the fourth time and declared that she would come to the UN building and physically drag Sadavir away.</p>
<p>"Well," Chrisjen said as they packed up sheepishly, "I guess that's it. If Scenario 45(ii) happens, it's war between us."</p>
<p>Sadavir took his coat off the hook and, for a long moment, stared at it without seeing. "Just for this, I'm going to write a new preamble about how to prevent Scenario 45(ii). Of all the people in this building, you're the last I want a war with."</p>
<p>"Because I'd win," Chrisjen said.</p>
<p>"Because I'd really hate it," Sadavir snapped, finally managing to get his coat on.</p>
<p>"As would I," Chrisjen assured him. "I'd also win.")</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I had an epiphany when Eros was coming," Sadavir said. Even now that it made no difference, he was still looking for the magic words that would change Chrisjen's mind. That would take her off the wrong side of the scale.</p>
<p>Chrisjen raised her eyebrows.</p>
<p>"Before Eros," he continued, "all these questions of war and peace were abstract to me. Late-night drunken debates."</p>
<p>"Scenario 45(ii). I remember."</p>
<p>Sadavir closed his eyes briefly against the too-bright lights of the visitors' room. "Reports, presentations, numbers. Then Eros. Eros made me understand viscerally how vulnerable Earth is. How fragile. That was when I knew I had to act."</p>
<p>Chrisjen let out a short, mirthless chuckle. "And may Eros be as visceral an understanding as you ever get." She sighed. "I could see that you'd changed after Eros. The great irony is that I thought that was when I got you back, when actually it was when I lost you."</p>
<p>"That was when I lost you," Sadavir echoed. He shook his head. "After I tried so hard to avoid Scenario 45(ii). I tried to hold Mao off Frank Degraaf. I tried to hold him off <em>you</em>. I swore to him you weren't a threat when I knew that was a lie. I came to you after Ganymede just in case I could get you back on my side. Everything I did to you, Chrisjen, everything, I put off until the last second, waiting for a miracle..." At some point, without noticing, his voice had become charged, jagged, ringing in the small bright room. "I just wanted to take down <em>Mars</em>, Chrisjen! <em>Mars</em>! Not <em>you</em>! And I'll <em>never</em> understand why you'd throw yourself in the way!"</p>
<p>"No, you probably won't, will you," she said, resigned.</p>
<p>It was as far as this conversation ever had gotten or ever would get, no matter how many times they had it. It was as far as this conversation could possibly get before it ran into the same wall it always did. Sadavir storming out of Chrisjen's office in the middle of the night, Sadavir aiming a missile at Chrisjen's ship...one way or another, it was the same wall. And yet here they were, hitting it again.</p>
<p>They were silent for a while, staring at the wall. It was Sadavir who first decided to change the subject. "So," he asked lightly, "is my job as bad as you thought it would be?"</p>
<p>"Oh, so much worse." Chrisjen groaned. "I miss having you around every damn day." Then she sat up, frowning. "And you? You never answered the question I came to ask. How are you doing?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Nine years ago, Esteban Sorrento-Gillis had been sworn in as Secretary-General, and Sadavir as his Undersecretary-General. There had been a dinner party. Sadavir's and Chrisjen's families had been seated together.</p>
<p>"You know," Chrisjen had declared, as Arjun finished giving Jodie a rambling discourse on Matsuo Basho's work, "this is as good as it's ever going to get. It's all downhill from here."</p>
<p>"Maybe for you," Sadavir replied. "I don't hate elections nearly as much as you do. I'm still planning to be Secretary-General eventually."</p>
<p>"And if you do, that'll be different. Novel. But will it be <em>better</em>? We already have what we need to do the work we came to do. If you replace the bobblehead, the knots will be prettier, but they'll tie you down the same. And the end will be nearer." Chrisjen stabbed a morsel on her plate with startling violence. "Starting today, every day that passes only brings us one day closer to irrelevance. To <em>retirement</em>."</p>
<p>"I don't fear retirement nearly as much as you do, either," Sadavir laughed.</p>
<p>"Really? Have you pictured it? Us sitting in a park in wheelchairs, arguing about politics, unable to do a damn thing about any of it?"</p>
<p>"Well, yes, actually. It sounds great, when the time comes." Sadavir smiled into the distance. "But that's decades from now, so where is all this pessimism coming from? Focus on tomorrow, Chrisjen. Tomorrow, we start changing the world together.")</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She'd been right back then after all, Sadavir thought. It had been all downhill from there. She was always right about almost everything. Except Mars.</p>
<p>"I'm fine." He realized that his fingers had returned to tugging at his unfamiliar prison cuffs. "You don't have to worry about me anymore."</p>
<p>"I always have to worry about everyone," she said, matter-of-factly.</p>
<p>"It's all good," he promised her, once again giving up on his cuffs and clasping his hands together. "I'll sit here and wait for the day the universe proves me right. And when it comes, I'll be expecting you."</p>
<p>Chrisjen let out a surprised laugh. "All right. An impossible dream is a fine thing to live for." She paused, looking at him thoughtfully, then leaned forward, reached across the table, and covered his hands with hers. "And when it never happens, you can expect me anyway."</p>
<p>He should have traded the warmth of those hands for the security of his planet, but at that he had already failed. So it made no difference now how tightly he clung to them. It made no difference now how eagerly he drank in the presence of his most extraordinary teacher, his most remarkable friend, the highlight of his old job before she took it away from him. It made no difference now how clearly he could still picture it, a faraway future of arguing futilely with her in wheelchairs--in a park or a prison, it would hardly matter by then--and how easily the image made him smile the same way it always had. It made no difference at all.</p>
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